There’s peace and quiet and I can sit in my seat all day without a 5-year-old jumping on me. My coworkers with families agree on this.
Actually what works the best for me is to sleep as late as I can until the house starts bouncing, then I go in to work and maybe leave a little early. I end up charging 3 hours or so to sick time.
I don’t feel guilty about the short day. I feel slightly guilty about the time I charge to a project when I’m at low efficiency, but no one at my company puts too much weight on those numbers.
when I was a teacher gasp I rarely took sick days, or any days for that matter. It was 3X the work to make lesson plans, grade work, etc. Usually it was easier to go in sick. (hey, if I infected some of the assholes and they had to take a few days off, so much the better!) Now I take sick days more often.
When Mrs. Spritle was split from 3 to 9 to deliver Baby Spritle, I was not “allowed” to take sick leave. Paternity leave (so to speak) must be taken in annual. Bull-pucky! I took two weeks of sick with the written excuse of helping my wife after major abdominal surgery. No problem
I do NOT donate any leave to our sick bank. Donating 3 days enables me to draw from the bank if I need to do so. Though it sounds great for those who need an occasional liver transplant or headectomy or whatever, it seems to be abused by (no lie) the guy who took almost 2 years off because he smashed his thumb on a printing press!! or the “lady” who slipped outside and twisted her knee three effin years ago!! No thanks on the sick bank.
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We just started a program to bring these slackers back to work. We set up “bridge” jobs that they can do. For example, dude with the boo-boo on his thumb has the menial job of answering phones at the help desk – until he’s “able” to return to his former job. Lemmetellya that phone gig sucks so badly, he’ll be back in print shop before you can say “Can you hold, please?”!!!
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I am TERRIBLE about taking sick days. I always dragged my sorry butt into work, no matter what was wrong with me. There were some days when the boss would take one look at me, and send me straight home. Even then I felt guilty about not being at work. I was at my last job for 3 years, and I only called in sick once. I didn’t even personally do the calling. My ex tricked me into thinking he would wake me up for work, and then let me sleep while he called in for me. I once went into work with a fever of 104 because there was no one around to stop me. I also know all of the medications that will mask whatever illness I have the best.
I often feel guilty because I know that I’m probably infectious, but I can’t seem to work up enough guilt to stay at home. I just do my best to keep my coughing to a minimum, and wash my hands compulsively.
Even now, as a student, I’ve had almost perfect attendence over the last 3 semesters. The only days I took off were right after my car accident, when I needed surgery. Even then, when they told me that I needed to get a pin put in my ankle, the first thing I said was that I couldn’t miss any school. Picture me 6 months pregnant, in a cast, and on crutches, making my way slowly up 3 flights of stairs to make it to class (the elevator kept breaking down) and you may get some idea of how determined I am not to take sick days.
You have GOT to get a life. Really, no slam on you, but you have to LIVE a little. When you get to the end of the road, are you gonna look back and say to yourself: “Well , life was good. I was an excellent, committed drone.”
I have no idea what you do, perhaps you adore your work and it brings you joy, in which case, I take it back. But if you are like 95% of people, and you do what you do pretty much because you have to, TAKE SOME TIME OFF AND LIVE YOUR LIFE!
Amen. I am all for calling-in-crazy days, but when I’m actually ill, I feel guilty about taking the day. Dunno why that is. I have a good work ethic and am an excellent employee, if I do say so myself. However, I don’t work overtime and I don’t come in on weekends unless it’s an actual emergency, and if I’m feeling genuinely incapacitated (or my kid is), I’m not going to come in then either - what for? I make myself available for phone calls, of course, and do what I can to arrange for my work to be put off until I return, because I owe that consideration to the company. Anything beyond that…hell no.
There’s several reasons for why the # is so high: It represents about 15 years accumulation (I’ve been there 20 + years, zeroed out my sick leave during the pregnancy of my son, started back up again there after he was about 1 year old), I don’t get sick often, and knock on formica, neither does my son. Being a single parent, I was never comfortable with taking a ‘mental health’ day off or ‘I just don’t feel really well’ 'cause you can never tell with kids (he’s been basically healthy, but there was the Chicken Pox in 1988, that took 40 hours SL, and last spring he was in the ICU with a nearly fatal case of mono+strep, that took another 48 hours), so ya never really want to burn them off.
And, yes, basically, I do love what I do - I run a small non profit working with ex offenders to help them get jobs, so get a wide range of stuff daily, from dealing with community leaders, the press, public officials to the clients themselves.
Plus, at this point, I’m my son’s transportation to school (we live 20 miles out of the district, he doesn’t drive yet).
So, appreciate the concern, it’s not all that bad.
I can’t stand calling in sick. I have done it on occasion…maybe a dozen times in the last 10 years with this company. It means that someone else will do my morning show. I CAN’T stand listening to someone else in my time slot.
In bed listening to the radio:
What a putz…played that promo too soon.
Come on!!! You’ve got a young kid on the phone…make him talk!!! “What thing does you teacher do that bugs you the most???”
Ask a freekin’ question ya dolt!
I really can’t stand it. Of course, I think no one can do it as well as I do it…Maybe, I’m worried the listener will like my fill-in more than they like me??
I always feel extremely guilty about taking days off school. One reason is all the work I miss. It takes me days to get back on track even just for one day missed. Another reason is similar to JimmyNipples’…if I’m working on a project with someone else, what if they mess it up? I guess this is one reason I HATE working in groups…I don’t trust people enough to let them do their part, I’d rather do everything myself. Yet another reason (and a sucky one at that) is that for some classes we get participation points for coming to school. If you miss days, you get points taken off. These points go onto our grades. It’s like saying, “If you come to school even if you’re dead, you’ll get more points!” Man, I hate it. So then I’m forced to take one sick day, even if it doesn’t help much, so then I’m in a constant “yucky” state.
I used to feel guilty about taking sick days, until I lost a month of accrued sick time when I left my last job. Now I take 'em when I need 'em guilt-free.
My current job has a “use it within the year or lose it” sick time policy. Since it’s been a healthy year (and I have a very cool boss), I just returned from having the HoHoHo flu – a visit to my family on the east coast cured me
Did have a good laugh a few years ago - got a sick leave award for no usage the previous year in April - had taken 3 weeks off that year already! (2 days flu, 13 days ruptured ankle tendon (softball injury) - they frown on crutches, so I just took off.)
What’s a sick day?
If I call in sick I lose my vacation time. Planning a trip to Hawaii, so you can bet that I won’t be calling in sick unless I am flat out in a hospital bed.
Michi
When I was teaching it was more trouble than it was worth to take time off when you were sick as I still felt the need to prepare everything for classes etc. So I never took sick days - until one day I collapsed after running a temp of over 41 celcius for a week. Found out I had glandular fever and CFS. MMMM Kinda learnt my lesson after a stay in hospital and 4 months off work. Now I take them if I need them.
That’s the most honest thing I’ve heard all night. Thank you.
Anyway, for some strange reason I’ve always found it hard to call in sick to work. I say strange, because I’m a slacker concerning other things in life. My personal rule is: I show up to work and let the boss decide if I can work or not.
Granted, I never really needed to use my sick days; meaning I’ve never had a serious illness. There were times when I was sick (ie. hung-over) but went to work anyway. But other than the odd cold or flu, I’ve never been able to not work.
